open the window to get
the school news and to learn whether there would be a match on Saturday.
As time went on this alliance told upon the Count's outer man; he never
lost his gay manner, nor his pretty little waist, nor could he ever have
been taken for a Scot, nor ever, if he had lived to the age of
Methuselah, have been made an elder of the Kirk; but his boots grew
thicker, though they were always neat, and his clothes grew rougher,
though they were always well made, and his ties became quieter, and his
week-day hat was like that of other men, and, except on Sundays,
Muirtown never saw the glory of the former days. With his new interest
in life, everyone noticed that the Count had grown simpler and kindlier,
and Muirtown folk, who used to laugh at him with a flavour of contempt,
began to love him through their boys. He would walk home with Bulldog on
a summer evening, the strangest pair that ever went together; and it was
said that many little improvements for the comfort of the lads, and many
little schemes for their happiness at Muirtown Seminary, were due to the
Count. It was believed that the time did come when he could have
returned to his own land, but that he did not go because he was a lonely
man and had found his friends in Muirtown; and when he died, now many
years ago, he left his little all for the benefit of his "jolly dogs,"
and the Count, who had no mourners of his blood, was followed to his
grave by every boy at Muirtown Seminary.

A TOURNAMENT

VIII

Since the day when Speug and a few young friends had broken every pane
of glass in the Count's windows, and the Count had paid for the damage
like a gentleman, that excellent foreigner had spent all his spare
cash--which we thought afterwards was not very much--in encouraging
athletic exercises among the Seminary lads. His zeal, like that of every
other convert, was much greater than his knowledge, and left to his own
devices he would certainly have gone far astray; but with the able
assistance of Speug, with whom he took intimate counsel, it was
astonishing what a variety could be infused into the sports. When every
ordinary competition had been held, and champions had been declared (and
this had never been done before in the history of the school) for the
hundred yards, the quarter, and the mile (the ten miles down the Carse
and over the top of Kinnoul Hill had been stopped by an impromptu
meeting of parents), for broad jumping and high ju